First Time
by Mirror and Image
Summary: [Complete]Cloud reflects on the many First Times of his life, and how they all revolved around Tifa...


**First Time**

Mirror and Image

Cloud remembered many First Times, and they always involved Tifa, he was certain. The First Time he remembered anything, he remembered Tifa. He was sitting on hi mother's lap, if he tilted his head just so he could see over the fence; where Mr. Grumpy Lockeheart and Mrs. Nice Lokeheart were playing with a kid that looked like him. He'd asked his Mama, and she said that was their daughter, Tifa.

The First Time he noticed Tifa was a few month later. Nibelheim was having a fair, and there was a princess contest where all the girls participated. Cloud had stayed away, he found girls annoying and giggly. But when they announced the winner, Tifa, he stared - openly - at this Really Pretty girl with brown hair to her shoulders and the frilliest dress he had ever seen. What Cloud noticed most was the eyes - under the brown was a ruby red; it meant that her eyes were Different, like his. It meant that she was a Different Person, like he was. Cloud remembered wondering if she had problems with the kids, too, because she was a Different Person.

That wasn't the case, however. No, if anything, the kids loved her. She was always surrounded by crowds of girls that giggled and laughed, never quite the same as her giggle and laugh - hers was prettier, softer, nicer.

He remembered the First Time she'd spoken to him. Cloud had watched her for a long time. He couldn't get close because the kids would pick on him because he was Different. So he would hide just inside his fence and watch. She was Really Pretty, had he mentioned that?

They were playing hide and seek. Someone had made a smart decision and made her it. Everyone ran to hide, and Tifa kept counting, and he kept watching. Finished, she turned around and be looking for the kids.

The first thing she did was peak behind the fence and looked him right in the eye. It was the First Time Cloud was speechless.

"Hey, I found you!" she said brightly, and gave her Gentle Smile. "This was a good hiding place."

She praised him! Heat filled his face and he stared, saucer eyed. Say something, Cloud, say something!

"... Yeah." Stupid! Stay something better!

"Hurry up and go to back to the well while I find the others." A giggle and a smile, Tifa turned and hunted the others down, gone like she had never been there.

Cloud didn't go to the well, he ran into the house to find his mother. "Mama! She talked to me! She talked to me!" He was sure it would be the happiest day of his life.

After that, he would try once or twice to sneak in to be near that Really Pretty girl. He only did it when the crowd around her was big; that way he would be less noticed, and picked on for being Different. Whenever he joined, Tifa would notice and give him a Gentle Smile. Sometimes she would welcome him.

Once, when they were playing Simon Says, Cloud was the only one to make it to Tifa. "That was wonderful!" she said, and it was the First Time she hugged him. His heart sped up and he didn't know what to do. He only stared, his face strangely red.

"What's the matter?" she asked, concerned. "Do you not like being hugged?"

Cloud shook his head violently. "N-no! I... uh... like them."

"Really? That's great!" and she hugged him again. Ah... perfect... "You're the first boy I've met who likes hugs! That's really wonderful."

After that was the First Time he was beaten, because the boys didn't like her giving attention to a Different Person. Cloud never understood this, because Tifa was a Different Person, her eyes were such a different and beautiful color. But she was accepted and he wasn't.

When he was older he wondered why. But it didn't take long to figure out why. Tifa was nice; she was equally nice to everybody. Her Gentle Smile was for everyone, so were her hugs and her giggles. There was nothing of her that wasn't given to everybody. It started to make Cloud wonder again - was there anything that she kept to herself? That no one saw?

She, in fact, did. He found out the First Time he saw her cry. When her mother died.

Tifa fought very hard to not cry. Her eyes were watery, shiny in a way Cloud had never seen before. Everyone had left, but she and her father were still there, and Cloud did the only thing he could do: watch. The shoulders started shaking, her head dipped down, hidden by her hair, but Cloud was certain, she was crying.

He felt, on a perverse level he didn't like, that they were closer. Cloud only had one parent, it was one of those things that made him Different, now she had one parent; it was another step for her to being Different.

Days later Tifa had invited him to her house; it was the First Time he would be in her room. Others were there, the worst of the kids, and Mr. Grumpy Lockeheart had given him a dirty look, but he went anyway. It was the First Time any of them had scaled the mountain, and it was the First Time they had fallen. It was also the First Time Mr. Grumpy Lockeheart yelled at him.

The next week Cloud was scared more than he could fathom - what if Tifa never woke up? What if she never gave her Gentle Smile again? What if... Cloud didn't want to think, but had nothing else to do. He knocked on her door constantly, only to be thrown out by Mr. Grumpy Lockeheart. He nearly fainted when she woke up; he was so relieved, so happy.

They talked after that. He felt it was the First Time they talked, even though it wasn't.

"He should never have done that to you," Tifa said. "I'm so ashamed of that man. You saved my life, you deserve better."

But I was too weak, Cloud felt. He didn't save her, she did.

"Tifa..."

"Cloud..." she said at the same time. They both paused, blushing.

"Cloud, did you feel this way, when your father died?"

"No... I was too young to remember him. But having only one parent, it's weird. Mama has to play both roles, Mama and Papa. People give you funny looks. I think they're feeling sorry for you, or something. You become a Different Person."

"Different Person..." Tifa brought her legs up, hugging them like she always did. "I wonder sometimes, if I've always been a Different Person. So many people are around me, but none of them have ever been near me. There are times when I feel so very alone..."

And it was the First Time Cloud knew. He just... knew.

A few days later, Cloud talked to Tifa for the First Time, instead of the other way around. That night under the stars. It was almost like a First Date.

And after that was the First and Only Time he left her.

And the sadness began.

**End**


End file.
